


Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

by strikeaprose



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Episode 26 spoilers, Hinted Mollymauk/Vax'ildan, Vax'ildan and Mollymauk, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 22:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15398793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikeaprose/pseuds/strikeaprose
Summary: Death did not scare Mollymauk. He had crawled out of death and embraced it again with all the same passion that he lived the short time in between. What rattled him to his implacable core was the emptiness that awaited him on this side of the grave.---Post-episode 26, Molly finding himself a companion and closure in the aftermath.





	Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

Nothingness. That was all he knew. Not darkness, not cold, simply nothingness. A void that yawned so wide that it consumed him wholly, casting a shadow over the last flickers of rage and righteousness he had felt. But did he ever feel it? Or was it an echo of someone else’s memory? It was as if he had tasted blood on his tongue both a second ago and some distant millenia in the past, and there was no discerning on which extreme lay the truth. Oblivion stretched him so thin that memories that once felt dear were simply dust on the edges of his mind. All colour and light seeped from his being like some gluttonous force siphoned it all away until he was one with the nothingness. It was a sensation that shook him with it’s aching familiarity.

Empty.

Mollymauk was empty.

The moment he felt the gaping chasm split in him, he rallied against it with all of his scattered might. Even without tactile presence he screamed and clawed with the fire in his soul, trying to stoke the embers of rage he might have once felt. His shrieks of indignation raked silently into the ether, making no sound yet tearing into eternity with his defiance. He would not be empty. He would not scatter to the winds of the universe like a handful of dust. The miles-away logic, trickling down through layers and layers of awareness he could not bring to order, knew that he was dead. Death did not scare Mollymauk. He had crawled out of death and embraced it again with all the passion that he lived the short time in between. What rattled him to his implacable core was the emptiness that awaited him on this side of the grave.

He tried to call names out into the beyond in some vain hope he might be heard. In the same formless breath he tried to sustain himself on the feelings those names invoked in him. He called out to those he had been chasing, desperate in his guilt for failing to save them. To those he had struggled to hold together, he cried out for their attention. He clung to flashes of memories he hoped were real; warm tavern hearths, victories shared with comrades, the safety of  _ family. _ Crooked smiles, fluffy pastries, secrets, blood and ale. Coins, cards, books. An impossibly tall, pale shadow. A mop of dirty ginger hair. Did he know these things, once? Or were they the desperate fabrications of a soul yearning for an anchor in the vast emptiness?

Centuries could have passed. Time was as conceivable as a thousand knots tangled into one. Mollymauk raged tirelessly to remember and feel, no longer caring whether the echoes of his life were real or not. All that mattered was that they were there and perhaps if he weaved through enough of them, they might fill the fissure that ran all the way through him.

Quite suddenly and unexpectedly, the whisps of what once was fell under the shadow of a presence. Not tangible, but so much more  _ real _ that it overwhelmed him. There was something like a rustle, like a caress to his diffused essence.

“My, you’re a loud one, aren’t you?”

The voice, soft and amused, hit Mollymauk with the force of a stone wall. Stunned, he could not place it but scattered himself desperately in search of whatever disturbed the eternal nothingness. His soul clawed out for purchase like a drowning man at the riverbed. A chuckle sounded out, smoothing over him like a balm. The sensation of being pulled back together felt like the exact reverse of being blown to pieces; still searing in its intensity, as ecstatic as it was painful.

The world emerged around Mollymauk so quickly he almost retched. He pitched forward, elbows on his knees where he sat on a solid surface, feeling nauseous in a way he never had before. Sensation was all around him, but dulled noticeably. He felt himself, felt his form and knew that if he opened his eyes he might see something at last. Yet he feared the lingering emptiness in him and how it had not fully gone away.

A hand lay between his shoulderblades, further anchoring him in the moment and keeping him from being lost to the winds again. Eventually, Mollymauk opened his eyes and sat up. A roaring fire greeted him, a few feet from where he sat on a log. Past the fire he could see other empty seats of a makeshift camp, beyond which there were familiar tents and a wagon. It was an imprecise memory; he could see elements of both the carnival and camps the Mighty Nien had set up as a group. The knowledge of both of those things creeped back into his mind and he wanted to weep with relief.

And yet. Some of the emptiness remained.

“It is always hard to know what is most comfortable,” he voice rose again, immediately to his right. Disoriented, Mollymauk looked over to see a slender figure seated on the makeshift bench next to him. They were looking at the fire, the light from which cut an outline of sharp facial features framed in long black hair. Their expression was neutral save for a quirk at the corner of their lips. “You felt like a nomad at heart. Am I right?”

They sounded almost familiar. Like someone Mollymauk once new, if they spoke in a difference cadence and accent. The sound of it poured warmth into his hollow chest.

“You’re not wrong,” the tiefling halfway conceded, at once startled by his own voice. It was not as raspy as he expected. “But this isn’t real, is it?”

“It is. In a way.” The person turned to face him, and Mollymauk caught the faint points of ears emerging from their hair. It seemed inevitable that the first person he saw after struggling in the void (if he ever saw anyone again) would be beautiful to him. Even with this subjectivity in mind, he found them undeniably handsome.

“Whatever it is, the view is nice.” Thankfully - or tragically - it seemed his draw towards pleasing aesthetic had survived. The stranger grinned.

“Oh good, you’re a charmer. Not many I find are so complementary.” The half-elf’s head cocked in an almost bird-like way as they considered Molly. “Or so handsome. Tell me, friend; do you know where you are?”

Molly stared at them for a moment, mirroring their up-and-down assessment and delaying his dive into the truth. They were lean, dressed in dark leather armor that looked almost formal. Yet they sat casually as if the two of them were friends sharing a moment by the fire. Then, Mollymauk looked down at his own hands and flexed them into fists before relaxing them again. He could see himself, and he felt…  _ kind _ of real. Present, but distant. Solid, yet not. He remembered the hand on his back and realized it was still there. He could feel and sense his surroundings, yet somehow it was just a little off.

But hey, it was something.

“I'm fairly sure I am dead? You would think I could say that sort of thing with confidence, given my experience.” He shrugged, careful not to dislodge the stranger’s hand on his back. It was more comforting than he cared to admit. Said stranger now wore a smile that was sympathetic, almost pitying, but it was warm.

“Trust me, you could feel death a hundred times and it never feels the same. But yes, sadly, you are correct.”

A long, hollow sigh escaped the tiefling. The weight of it settled over him and he felt an ache both in his chest and countless miles away. Names flitted just on the boundaries of his understanding -  _ Jester, Caleb, Yasha _ \- names he had called out desperately in the formless void. He had left them behind. He remembered rage and pain, mixed with a protective drive that had propelled him towards the end. There were people back there - wherever life was in relation to where he was now - that he had given up everything for. And he ached for them so very badly.

Stolen away from those he cared for. That was his reward. His tail flicked irritably, but stopped as it collided with something soft. Twisting around on the bench to look behind them, Mollymauk saw a veil of black right behind him that arched out from the half-elf’s back. A wing of feathers so dark they seemed to absorb the light from the campfire. It curled around him like some imitation of a shelter, not touching but just as comforting as the supportive hand on him.

“It hurts. I know it does. To be taken away from loved ones too soon is worse than the pain of any mortal wound.” The stranger withdrew his hand, and Mollymauk found himself missing it immediately. The tiefling swallowed thickly, letting his eyes rove over the wing and following the arch back to its owner, who was still looking at him with sharp but not unkind eyes.

“So, you’re an angel of death?” Molly tried to laugh, but it was too breathy and just shy of manic. He turned back to the fire and clutched at his own arms as he felt panic settle back in. “Never bet on those being real. Or pretty. The iconography was always so bleak and ugly.” He knew he was babbling, but it helped keep the rising anxiety at bay. 

“Mollymauk.” The sound of his name being spoken brought his attention back to the half-elf. Their voice was firm, but gentle in its insistence. “Do not be afraid. Nobody drifts in the ether forever, just simply until their fate is settled. Yours,” There was a thoughtful glint in the winged one’s eyes as they regarded Mollymauk for a pause. “Yours is unreadable at the moment. I see so many strands of possibility leading in so many directions - your fate is as chaotic and evasive as you are.” The smile on their face was strangely fond and familiar. “Mine was quite the same.”

Mollymauk gripped his own arms a little tighter, anchoring himself in the pinch of nails biting into his not-there skin. “Usually I’d be flattered.”

“Flattery is one of my many talents,” the half-elf replied with a smirk. A fleeting smile caught onto Molly’s expression, yet he tried to remain focused.

“But what does that mean? I don’t want that… whatever that was. It was endless and terrifying and nothing at all. And as you can guess, I don't do well with nothingness.”

“You seem the type for ‘too much’ over ‘too little’.” The stranger gestured a hand over his coat and adorned horns with amusement. “I could feel your panic, hence why you are here.”

Mollymauk tilted his head quizzically. “You brought me… where, exactly?” He glanced back around at the mismatched camp before them.

“A place to rest, for now. I cannot shepherd a soul who’s fate is yet decided, but you were very insistent on not wandering the void.”

Molly stood up. He found himself fixated on details of the camp illuminated by the campfire. Beyond the light it provided, there was endless blackness that not even his excellent vision could see through. He stepped closer to the fire, which felt warm and cold all at once, and looked over the benches. If he thought hard enough about the people he could kind of remember, he could almost hear them bickering over the fire. A brash female voice that felt like truth. A squeaky, stubborn voice that felt like courage. One that was deep, accented and reliable.

He must have stood there, mentally chasing the tails of memory, for a few minutes. If time was even a factor here. Mollymauk saw in the corner of his vision an unkempt figure hunched over a book. In the opposite corner, something blue and flouncing and radiating energy. If he turned to look at them, the images flitted away like spooked doves and left nothing but silent air.

Gods. He missed them.

“Can you tell me that they’re alright?” he asked after a while, voice cracking, as he looked back to the stranger. They were also standing now, wings lightly folded behind them as they stepped closer to Molly. He could see daggers on their belt and a regal air about them that somehow did not diminish their comfortable presence. All that worried him was the soft frown they wore as they stepped back into Molly’s space.

“They are all alive and aching to see you just the same as you feel for them. It is their desire to bring you home that shrouds your fate in mystery. I have seen that love shape many destinies, including my own and those who I also cared for dearly. I can’t ensure anything for you. But something so reckless and passionate as you feels so familiar, and that gives me hope for you.”

Mollymauk looked between them as the stranger extended a hand to him. He studied them for a moment, unclenching his own hand and taking it. It felt more solid than he ever hoped to be, and it gave him immense comfort. “You lived once,” he murmured, curious and cautiously optimistic. “But what are you now?”

Squeezing his hand and clasping it between both of their own, Mollymauk’s shepherd smiled. “Vax’ildan, Champion of the Raven Queen. But, my loud and colourful Mollymauk, you may call me Vax. And I will stay with you until it is time to go.”

The endless emptiness at last felt a safe distance away. Fear and regret drained away little by little until the tiefling finally felt like some semblance of himself again. His inner fire, stoked by hope, shone a little brighter as he flashed a grin. “Molly,” he said. “My friends call me Molly.”


End file.
